1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to trader communication systems and more particularly to a trader desktop interface device.
2. Related Art
Before today's modern communication systems, trader's desks were often cluttered with telephones with hold buttons and slips of paper. Today, voice-trading platforms have been built specifically for the trading floor, offering traders elaborate telephone systems having a variety of voice and data applications. These telephone systems are known in the art as trading “turrets”. Features on trading turrets include the ability to store thousands of telephone numbers, instant messaging, desktop video conferencing and integration with customer relationship management software for storing a client's vital information. Many of today's trading turrets use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which turns a telephone's audio signal into packetized form which can be communicated over a wide area network or intranet for easier routing and storage.
One integral part of the trading environment is call recording. It can resolve problem trades, reduce liability insurance premiums and be used to train new recruits. Today's trading communication systems incorporate recording features directly into the telephony system, allowing advanced features to be provided to traders, such as trader-initiated recording, call marking for quick retrieval, selective recording and trader-controlled playback with access to the last several calls.
A common trader-based recording solution allocates recording resources to traders at log-on, thus recording traders conversations regardless of which turret they choose to trade from. This provides traders with the mobility they need without jeopardizing their corporation's need to adhere to compliance guidelines. In particular, compliance guidelines require organizations to maintain a complete audit trail of financial transactions. This includes capturing and storing company-to-customer or trader-to-investor telephone conversations. Recording servers may even be placed in a remote data center, making it possible to physically separate the recording infrastructure from the trading floor.
In order for traders to playback previously recorded telephone conversations, they must obtain appropriate management approvals. In addition, typically such recordings are retrieved much later in time than when they were recorded. As a result, the playback requirements of financial and trading floor institutions as well as the technical process of physically retrieving recorded conversations are time consuming.
As is well known, information disclosed among traders in many situations requires an immediate response. For example, the audio signal that is coming out of one of several audio channels may be of a customer selling a stock at a certain price. It may be the case that this stock selling activity is indicative that the stock's price will move quickly shortly thereafter. The interaction based on this information is thus time sensitive, requiring the trader on the receiving end of this information to act quickly. If the trader were able to focus solely on the customer selling the stock, the trader may be able to react to the information when it was first provided. It is often the case, however, that the trader is listening to several audio channels simultaneously through one speaker or headset, that the trading floor is noisy, that the audio signal was not clear because several persons on different audio channels were speaking simultaneously, or simply that the trader's speaker unit or headset volume was set too low. Heretofor, there has not been available a way to recall a portion of an audio conversation for the purpose of acting on it quickly.
Accordingly, there is a need for a trading floor recording apparatus, system and method for recording a recent portion of a audio conversations.
There is also a need for a trading floor recording apparatus, system and method which records audio channels in a manner that complies with federal and local laws and the requirements of financial and trading floor institutions.
There is also a need for a trading floor recording apparatus which can discriminate one or more specific call channels from the rest during playback.
Given the foregoing, what is needed is a system, method, and apparatus for recording and reproducing trading communications, instantaneously, at the desktop.